David Flores

- - - Updated - - - If you are not happy with the tattoo that's one thing, but you say it's infected? I hear a lot of people throw around that term, especially people with a couple tattoos, every time they have a tattoo that heals hard. I have seen very few tattoos from professional artists become infected and the ones I have are usually on people who live in the gym and like rolling around in other people's staph. But you know their is a reason things need to be sterile so it is definitely plausible. Either way this is a discussion to be hard with the tattooer, he should at least have the chance to address your concerns, regardless of whether you go somewhere else from now on or not.

I have seen and actually have a policy of no free touch ups on foot tattoos, finger tattoos and palm tattoos, but yeah first touch up is free as long as you come in a reasonable time on most tattoos. Those spots are so problematic, and very easy to screw up the healing on the clients end, it's just easier to pose it that way, if anything it gets people to be more careful. I only point this out because taken out of context one could say a shop wouldn't touch up my tattoo for free, when in reality it was just the exception.

As long as you don't get a realistic color portrait of Bryan Cranston, I think you will be okay. If you get something that looks like a tattoo it won't matter if where it came from is relevant in 20 years. I kind of like the police drawing of Heisenberg, think it would make a nice simple tattoo and people who know would recognize it right away.

What about Lucky Bastard at Fine Tattoo Work - Lucky Bastard / Horiko or Chip Douglas @ Port City Tattoo. Chip does nice black work and Japanese. http://cdouglastattoo.com/

Portland is really easy to get around, I go to that neighborhood a lot running errands.

If you look at the pic again their is a mini skateboard deck in the yard left behind by the kids. I don't know what they were doing with it, as it had cheap plastic trucks that had broken off, so it was a pretty useless toy. btw My schedule is wide open the days you are going to be in town, so we can definetly meet up and hang out.

Not every tattoo someone does you are going to like and they probably don't always get ta tattoo things exactly what they want at times. I think there is enough examples to tell me he knows a few tricks and can pull off a solid tattoo in most styles I imagine. You know what you want, you have clear examples that look tattooable and would lend themselves to the styles of some of his stronger tattoos.

I would let this guy tattoo me, I think he will do a nice job on your tattoos, based upon his instagram photos.

I don't think this tattoo is done well. The background should not be the same color as the flower and I don't think it adds to the tattoo. All the blues and greens and purples are cool colors and could really use more warm colors like gold and orange in the tattoo, the pink just isn't enough of a contrast to the purple to pull it off. I am not a big fan of this genre. I think sometimes people feel like they have too choices, bold line traditional and no outline realistic, and I think there are plenty of things in between that could better suit a person who wants a tattoo that looks a little more realistic, but still has and outline and enough black to hold up over time. But at the very least using colors that compliment each other if you do go this route.

I don't get it. Why would you get a tattoo that didn't offend someone, especially uptight people at the supermarket.

It's always weird cause everytime you get tattooed it feels different so it's hard to say what hurts less. I really don't have a clue. Coil does sound more aggressive for sure. In regards to the getting through the pain.I have much respect for people who sit through long tattoo sittings, I wouldn't say I have a high threshold for pain, but I guess if I want to get a tattoo I have to find a way to get through it. The best advice I have ever been given is to sit there and take it. You can take pain killers, rub cream on there, or whatever ritual you have, but the only answer is to accept the pain and try to relax, at times it sure sucks, but to me that's part of the accomplishment.

Thanks, Nothing secret, but Matt said as soon as he gets back to San Rafael they are working on volume 2

Yeah it's on a sheet of flash in the Spider Murphy book, but I just assumed it was a Simpsons Reference. Not the main reason I got it, just a bonus.

Matt Howse did this on me yesterday at Fortune Tattoo here in Portland and yes it is right up in my business.

I got lettering tattooed on me yesterday.

I 100% agree to this statement. I was speaking more to the general mindset of art or expression by some. I think for the most part we see things pretty much the same way.

Aesthetically I can see what she is saying, but the rest of your arm has a certain look for sure, but if you like your tattoo and it brings you luck then keep it I say. Often tattooers frame tattoos instead of covering them, because people don't know how sentimental they are about there old tattoos or maybe just the experience of getting that tattoo or just being 14, and it sounds like that is the case.

You should be used to it by now? The skull is pretty cool, I will say that. There has to be a common ground, I mean the skaters didn't care for the BMX kids, but they could agree they hated the rollerbladers, we just need to find the rollerbladers.

I think you should go with your gut. Anything can be art I suppose, but not everything can be a good tattoo. Tattoos are a mixture of art and craftsmanship. This isn't vietnam there are rules here, mark it zero. Whatever the client decides to get is fine, but if you don't know or pretend there are no rules, how can the client get the best tattoo. You have to at least have professional input. People often want professional advice on tattoos, and want to elevate there ideas beyond their literal interpretation, even if they don't come into the shop saying that. People have to wear these tattoos forever, you can sell a shitty painting or better yet donate it. The everything is art thing is a cop out and excuse for people to do shitty tattoos IMO.

I don't think this thread could teach someone to tattoo, but if someone came in an requested to get tattooed by a rotary I would be besides myself that they thought they had a say in the matter. Why can't tattoo machines, be magical devices conjured up in secret lairs with parts unknown to modern man. I have been tattooed by a rotary machine and i guess at times it was less painful than a coil, but not rainbows and unicorns better, and after two hours it sucked just as bad. Tattoos hurt

From the looks of it, I would advise people to save their money for the Bay Area Convention of the Tattoo Arts in October. When this show landed in Portland, I told people if you want to watch a bunch of scantily clad women (who doesn't) and douchebags with one tattoo and their shirts off walking around, this might be your party, but if you are looking to get tatttooed there is better avenues. But that being said I do love a good trainwreck, if you do go, please share the details.

One time a guy called and said he wanted to get tattooed, we had tattooed his son and all of his friends to the point of being on first name basis with them. He showed up his other son who we hadn't met who happen to have down syndrome, just to look around the shop. While the father was talking to my boss, I answered some questions from his wife and son. As far as I can tell the kid had two tattoos, a blazer logo, and some other logo from a WWE character done by god knows who. He talked about wanting to get a snake, and i answered all this questions, but the whole thing was a little weird. The whole family was tattooed, and I get why he wanted to have tattoos, he wanted to fit in, there was no good reason I could give to these people why their son couldn't get tattooed, although the whole interaction made me a little uneasy. Like I said I answered the questions he had, didn't push the issue and never heard anything about him wanting to get tattooed, although the rest of the family comes in from time to time to get tattoos.

I never go back for touch ups, unless the tattooer looks at the healed tattoo and sees something they want to touch up or it's something really obvious. Getting tattooed by the same people a lot, then tend to touch up their other work, while working on new pieces if they see something that stands out. I don't think their is anything wrong with getting a touch up, but one word of advise for others who might read this, wait till the tattoo heals completely before talking about a touch up. Nothing more annoying than someone with a three day old tattoo freaking out in the tattoo shop about something they think they see in the tattoo. There is definitely a misconception about tattoos and touch ups, I think too many people are used to getting tattooed by people who don't know what they are doing and having to come back for touch ups, in turn their friends with no tattoos hear them talk about going to get tattoos touched up, so when they decide to start getting tattooed, they think it's part of the process.

I have heard and people using saline to remove tattoos for some time and have witnessed the procedure a couple of times. Those couple of times I haven't been able to develop an opinion about whether it works better than laser. The first time I saw it happen, it was to try to remove a couple letters in a tattoo that was misspelled, after a couple of sessions the tattooer covered it up with the right letters, secondly was a guy who was trying to get his whole sleeved zapped so he could get a japanese sleeve by someone else. He only did one session, but it removed a good amount of black from the tattoos on his arm, but he still decided to go the laser route, . I am not sure how they use the saline to remove the tattoo, but I saw it done with a coil machine, so methods could be different, but if that is the case one thing to consider is that laser sessions hurt a lot but take a lot less time than having somone go over your whole tattoo with saline, and the process hurt more than being tattooed, so which is really worse?. Like I said this could be a different method with same substance, but that is my insight from what I have seen.

I think next time I go to Chicago, I will just drop in and whoever has time available is who I will get tattooed by. How could I not like this shop, some of the best guys in the business are resident tattooers there, and a steady stream of who's who as guest artists, not to mention same day service available.